Israel Gives Visas to Soviet Officials--1st in 2 Decades

Israel has granted entry visas to a Soviet delegation that is to make the first official visit here since Moscow severed diplomatic relations with the Jewish state 20 years ago, the Foreign Ministry announced Thursday.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ehud Gol, said the visas were issued Wednesday through the Dutch Embassy in Moscow, which looks after Israeli interests in the Soviet Union.

Officially, the Soviet delegation, which is expected to arrive next month, is coming to discuss consular questions related to Soviet Jews in Israel and to survey property owned by the Russian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem.

It will be headed by Yevgeny Antipov, deputy director of the Consular Department of the Soviet Foreign Ministry.

Wider Significance

But the visit has wider implications and is seen here as a significant if tentative step toward the gradual normalization of Soviet-Israeli relations. This in turn is taken as a sign of the more pragmatic and flexible attitude Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev has adopted toward Middle East diplomacy.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that the visas were approved a day after Soviet officials disclosed in Moscow that they had applied for them.

Gol, the ministry spokesman, said he did not know exactly when the consular delegation will arrive, how long it will stay, or whom it will see.

In Moscow, Gennady I. Gerasimov, a spokesman for the Soviet Foreign Ministry, said Wednesday that the delegation hopes to visit Israel in July, to “resolve consular questions relating to Soviet citizens (and) Soviet property in Israel.”

Rejection Reiterated

Negotiations over the visit have been under way for about a year, but for much of that time they were deadlocked over Israel’s insistence that it be allowed to make a reciprocal visit.

Gerasimov reiterated the Kremlin’s rejection of this demand, telling reporters in Moscow that a reciprocal visit was “out of the question now” because Israel “has no property (in the Soviet Union) and we have no Israeli citizens permanently residing in our country.”

Official Israeli sources said the decision to grant visas to the Soviet delegation without the guarantee of a reciprocal Israeli visit was made in the hope that the Soviets will allow an Israeli mission to travel to Moscow at a later date.

However, the sources conceded that Moscow has the stronger hand in these negotiations because of its control over the emigration of Soviet Jews.

A meeting of Soviet and Israeli diplomats in Finland last year broke up after only 90 minutes because of a Soviet refusal to discuss increased emigration of Soviet Jews.

Nevertheless, the Kremlin, under Gorbachev, is believed to be keen on improving ties with Israel as part of an effort to increase its limited influence in the Middle East and guarantee itself a role in any possible Arab-Israeli peace talks.

“The Soviets have virtually been littering the landscape of late with lots of flexibility on every issue you can think of,” a Western diplomat in Tel Aviv said. “They have been meeting with the Israelis, and emigration is up.”

In May, 871 Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union, the highest monthly total in six years.

This week, an Israeli women’s delegation is visiting the Soviet Union to take part in a feminist conference, and a group of politicians that includes the general secretary of Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ Labor Alignment has been invited to another meeting in Moscow next month.